


Nothing (Everything) Changed

by cyprith



Series: Modern Magic AU [10]
Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Everything Hurts, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 14:36:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1861566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyprith/pseuds/cyprith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ravens court through displays of intelligence, ability to procure food. Diaval is not quite a raven, so perhaps Maleficent can be forgiven for not noticing until far too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing (Everything) Changed

**Author's Note:**

> superhypnosiscookie prompted: up to no good

She never asked Diaval to bring her things—not coffee and certainly not a rotating assortment of treats from the Gingerbread House down the street. Still, when he arrived to the office on Monday without the ever-present goody bag, Maleficent couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment.

And in the back of her head, a small, irrational voice whispered, _everything’s changed._

It must have shown on her face. Setting his cardboard tray of coffee down on the edge of her desk, Diaval laughed.

“Now, don’t fret,” he said. “Would I send you to work without feeding you?”

Carefully neutral, Maleficent schooled her expression, leaning back in her chair. “Contrary to what you may believe, I _do_ eat before I leave the house.”

Diaval grinned. “And I eat with you. Scoot over.”

Obliging, Maleficent shifted the _actual work_ from her desk to make space for him. Nothing had changed, she told herself, focusing on the movement of her hands to keep her thoughts at bay. They enjoyed some iteration of this ritual every morning. _Nothing_ had changed.

But instead of the usual brown paper bag, Diaval plopped a Tupperware in front of her.

Lifting an eyebrow, Maleficent asked, “What is this?”

Diaval only beamed. Arms tucked behind his back, he rocked onto his toes. His hair in his eyes and his shirt already wrinkled, he looked like nothing so much as _trouble_.

“New sponsor, new hobby,” he announced. “Well, go on. What d’you think?”

Ah. Perhaps that explained it, then. Maleficent shifted, sorting her wings. He’d only exchanged puzzles for cookery, she told herself. Simple. Nothing deeper there to see.

Still, bristling, her feathers refused to settle. The joints of her wings _ached_.

Opening up the Tupperware, she found a tidy nest of croissants snug inside. A dozen perfect little moons peered up at her, each latticed with careful caramel lace.

“They’re pretty,” she said, choosing one.

Diaval only grinned, watching her, _still_ watching, though her wings whispered of an ill wind.

Nonsense, of course. He’d simply brought her food. Nothing there to worry. Nothing there to lose.

Snapping her feathers irritably, Maleficent ignored them. She took a bite.

The pastry melted on her tongue, salty and sweet, tinged with nutmeg and the barest hint of almond. Despite herself, her eyes fluttered closed.

On the other side of the desk, Diaval crowed and did a little dance. “You like it then?”

Returning to the moment at hand, she found him watching her with such intensity, such _heat_ —the weight of his happiness, his _want,_ like a blow. Butterflies bloomed in her chest, shattering against her ribs. Slowly, Maleficent swallowed and swallowed again. She busied herself shooing crumbs back onto her napkin.

“They’re very good,” she said.

Finally, _finally_ , Diaval sat. He leaned in—jarring in his nearness—and snagged a treat for himself.

“Well, they’d better be,” he said with no small satisfaction. “The caramel was a bitch to get right. They can smell my flat three floors down.”

Slow and even, Maleficent breathed, letting her momentary madness dissipate. Nothing had changed, she told herself. Nothing, nothing had changed.

She took her coffee from the cardboard coaster, stirred in an extra packet of sugar to busy her hands. Though, of course, no doubt Diaval had doctored it already. He knew her habits—knew _her_ , and the thought warmed as deeply as it alarmed.

Steadying her hands against the cup, she tried to think of something to say. She groped for normality, wracked her brain for their usual conversations, but her thoughts ran from her, back to the field, to the lazy curl of his mouth, lying close enough to feel his heat, and she—

Couldn’t _._ She _couldn’t_. Not again. _No_.

“Rough night?” Diaval asked.

Startled, Maleficent looked up from her hands and found him frowning. “What?”

“Didn’t you sleep well?”

“I rarely sleep well,” she said and wished—wished he would _leave_ , just for a minute, a second, to give her some time to _breathe._

“Bad dreams, or…?”

_“Or_ ,” she snapped, rougher than she meant to. Though her heart pounded like a rabbit in her chest, Maleficent pressed her hands against the desk, tried to steady. “I’m sorry.”

But Diaval only smiled. He shook his head and stood. “No, it’s alright. I’ll get out of your hair for a bit.”

Because he understood. Of course he understood. He _always_ understood.

“Don’t forget your box,” she called, her voice painfully even, lifting the Tupperware.

Pausing at the door, Diaval grinned back at her. “Nope. Those are for you,” he said. “I’m fattening you up,” and slipped out, shutting the door behind him.

—

For some time after he left, Maleficent stared at the box of treats, struggling to breathe again.

She tried to remember if anyone had ever made anything for her. Did he need something, she wondered? Usually, he simply asked for what he wanted—or, in the case of days off, _took them_ and scheduled her out as well. If he wanted something, surely he could _tell her_ without all—all _this_.

Carefully, Maleficent closed the Tupperware and set it aside. But though she returned her attention to her email, the box remained, staring at her across the desk.

She found herself thinking again of Diaval sprawled in the grass, his eyes so soft, looking at her with something like… like _hope._

Hope of _what_?

Never mind. Ridiculous. A waste of time and mental energy. Even if—if there were _something_ —which there was _not_ —she was his _employer_. Questionable at best, and an abuse of power at worst. They were coworkers. Associates. Perhaps even… friends. And if it struck her odd to have a friend again after so many years managing on her own, well, some strangeness was to be expected.

It didn’t mean anything.  

_Nothing_ had changed.

Shaking off her creeping dread, Maleficent snapped her wings—for whatever little good it did—and returned to the order forms littering her desk.

—

Though a tremor in her wings persisted, speaking of fear and ill winds, Maleficent ignored it. Eventually, through force of will, things returned to normal again.

Diaval continued to view knocking as an optional activity, bouncing between his office and hers with at least one of several birds balanced somewhere on his person. He ignored her threats as often as he ever did, cajoling her into smiling when her mood soured, sprawling somewhere on her floor when the days went well.

He continued, however, to bake.

Every day, she found her desk decked with some new confectionary experiment. And every day, more and more people found a reason to wander through her outer office—especially women, she couldn’t help but notice, not that it mattered—all of them exiting with a tart or a cookie in hand.

One morning, Maleficent arrived at work to find Diaval already there. He stood squinting at an instruction booklet, pieces of a table lying cockeyed at his feet.

“What is this?” she asked, but Diaval only grinned.

“Needed more room,” he said.

Maleficent walked into her office shaking her head.

Just the same, she didn’t ask again.

—

The days crept onward, spring into summer. Diaval moved from cookies to danishes, elaborate experiments with cheeses and berries, chestnuts and beer. He baked tiny cakes, iced in buttercream, sugar, meringue—testing for something, some quality he couldn’t name.

His table filled with cannoli and éclair, empanadas and fa gao. His first attempts at doughnuts stalked the corners of her desk, accompanied by forks and misapplied lemon jelly. He brought her macarons long after he worked out the problem with the batter, left vol-au-vent in her mini-fridge filled with chocolate cream. He tried pear turnovers—didn’t like them—and turned his hand to the nut pastries his grandmother used to make.

But nothing, of course, had changed.

—

Late in a sleepless night—after an aching string of sleepless nights—Maleficent’s phone croaked a raven lullaby, signaling a text.

**:::Are you asleep?:::**

**:::No:::** she typed back.

**:::I figured out the goblin fruits. Come over?:::**

Despite herself, her better judgment, Maleficent went.

—

“Come behold my breathtaking cleverness,” he announced upon opening the door, throwing an arm behind him towards the kitchen. “And you’re looking lovely, by the way.”

A joke, a quip.

Still, everything changed.

Just inside the doorway, Maleficent stilled. She looked at him—battered t-shirt beneath a Kiss the Cook apron—and couldn’t feel her hands.

“And you look up to no good,” she said. “Is this part of your evil plan?”

Pausing, halfway to the kitchen, Diaval smiled. His eyes found hers and slid away. “That depends,” he said, his voice so strange, so oddly gentle. “Do you _want_ to kiss the cook?”

Did she…?

Like a distant gale, Maleficent’s ears began to ring. Her chest seized. A black and fathomless ocean opened beneath her feet, ice catching in her throat, claws beating against her breast.

She saw Stefan’s face—five years younger, red with desperate anger—“But it’s _better_ this way. We’ll _pass_ , Mal. Nobody’ll look twice at us. We’ll finally be fucking _normal_!”—

—and she couldn’t feel her wings. Her whole body hurt, small and—

—lost in the crowd, couldn’t breathe— _no wings,_ couldn’t fly—trapped, _trapped—_

—tossed in a sea of camera and jostling humans, all of them humans— _how do you feel about—did you know—do you regret—_

—Pain. Pain and blood, pooling in her hand—

“Woah, hey,” Diaval’s voice broke through her haze. She found him closer than he’d been, face lined in concern. Gently, so gently, his fingers grazed her arm, but Maleficent felt his touch like a brand. She flinched, without meaning to, and Diaval retreated back a step.

“Never mind,” he said, trying to smile. “Here, chocolate. Chocolate fixes everything.”

Hands shaking—damn her hands for shaking—Maleficent took the goblin fruit he offered her. She stared at it, her fingers foreign and useless, belonging to a stranger.

She remembered the ring. And she’d been so happy. She’d been so _stupid._ She’d actually _believed…_

Rubbing the thick band of scar tissue around her ring finger, Maleficent considered the sweet she held. She looked up at Diaval— _Diaval—_ who’d never… he’d never…

And she _did_ want. She did.

She wanted to touch him as badly as she wanted to _run_. 

“I’m sorry,” Diaval said. He stepped back again, took off the apron and threw it somewhere behind him, heedless where it fells. “Did I—I didn’t mean—”

Maleficent swallowed. “It’s fine,” she said, shaking her head. “Occasionally, my ghosts come back to haunt me.”

“Bad night?”

“Very much so, yes.”

Diaval smiled, so soft and so sad, his hands restless at his sides. “If you need to leave, I understand. I won’t think less of you if you take my food and run.”

And she was a coward. She was a fool.

She wanted so badly…

But she did.

—

It took her only moments to get home.

And a moment more to realize—he’d never once said _I was only joking._

And he would have. She knows him. He would have _told her_ had it been a joke.

But he didn’t. Because he _never_ lied to her.

Shedding her clothes, Maleficent retreated to her bedroom. Stefan’s face throbbed like a bruise in her memory, doubling over Diaval’s. Restless and aching, her wings shuddered on her back.

She wanted to call him. She didn’t. Wanted to apologize, but couldn’t. What would she even say?

_You make me want to climb out of my skin. I want to touch you; I cannot stand the idea._

Sitting on her bed, Maleficent wrapped her wings as tightly around her shoulders as she could. She worried at the scar on her finger, pulling at a ring that wasn’t there. Hadn’t been there for many, many years. And she tried to stop, tried to _breathe,_ but words and pictures tumbled through her head, far too fast to catch.

She wanted; she didn’t.

Worse, of all people, Diaval would understand. If she called him and asked to go flying, he _would_. No questions asked.

Maleficent glanced at her phone. Glass ground beneath her skin.

They weren’t friends, she realized, alone and shaking in her room. They were something worse.

And everything had changed.


End file.
